Word: cia
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...reaction to the two terrorist attacks during the last week in December is puzzling. One of the attacks, against a CIA outpost in Afghanistan, succeeded; the other, on an airplane landing in Detroit, failed. The Undiebomber was an amateur who was thwarted, rather neatly, by his fellow passengers on the plane. The Afghanistan operation was quite the opposite--highly sophisticated and devastating, with vast implications for both the war in Afghanistan and future clandestine CIA operations. And yet the Undiebomber has provoked an avalanche of attention in our twittery media--and from Republicans like Dick Cheney who yearn...
...latest tragedy: the seven killed on Wednesday in Khost, near the border with Pakistan, were victims of a suicide bombing at a forward operating base. The bomber seems to have targeted a gym at the base and appears to have simply walked in. Says Bruce Reidel, a former CIA officer and author of President Obama's first Afghanistan-Pakistan review: "This underscores the Afghan war is going to be long and costly. The enemy has come to know us better than we know them. Reversing that intelligence gap is imperative and hard to do." (See pictures of Gen. Stanley McChrystal...
...unclear how the bomber gained access to the base, but reports say the CIA has used it to recruit Afghans. "It is important to remember that the mission of the CIA in Afghanistan is to work closely with Afghans," says Robert Grenier, a former CIA stationchief in Pakistan. "That mission necessarily carries a high degree of risk, especially given the prevalence of suicide bombers...
Supposedly secure Western fortifications have been attacked before in Afghanistan. In October, five British soldiers were killed when an Afghan policeman fired on a U.K. training team inside a checkpoint in Helmand Province. But Grenier says that given the breadth and depth of the CIA's operations in Afghanistan, the death toll among employees has been "almost miraculously light." He adds: "Fate may have caught up with us today." The Khost death toll is second only to the record for the number of CIA staffers killed in a single day. On April 18 1983, eight members of the Agency were...
...Taliban routinely launch attacks on U.S. and NATO positions in Afghanistan. The Taliban has already claimed responsibility for Wednesday's attack, but U.S. authorities have released few details. "We mourn the loss of life in this attack," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said. Hank Crumpton, who headed the CIA's counterterror ops in Afghanistan after 9/11: "This horrible attack underscores the risk that CIA officers, men and women, undertake every day in Afghanistan and around the world. They are America's most important resource in this war, and this is a tragic blow...